Opportunities to escape the concrete jungle and get a taste of small-farm life abound in the Minnesota summertime. Whether you’d like to do a basic farm tour, enjoy dinner served up right on the pastures where the food was raised, or even help out with farm chores for a day as part of a “crop mob,” you can find an option that gets your city-slicker self out in the fields for at least a few hours.

With all this nice weather, I am beginning to wonder if we are skipping right over spring and into summer. I'm somewhat fearful about what less-than-usual snow and rain mean for the larger climate picture and what it will mean for farmers in the coming months, but it's hard not to be excited about enjoying the warmth earlier this year. I find myself running to shop for items to make summer nights better than ever. For instance, we bought a little table for outside in our yard and decided to invest in a propane grill.

Today is the deadline for entries for the “Eat Lunch with Your Kids” contest. Thanks to all of you who have sent such terrific stories about your school lunch with your sons and daughters. If you haven't sent us your entry, please do so today -- or you’ll miss your chance to win a one-year supply of Organic Valley milk and much more!

Although I’m not allowed participate in the contest, I did commit to eating lunch at school with my twin eight-year-olds. And taking pictures and writing about it. So two weeks ago, I packed their lunches (as I usually do) and planned to meet them at 12:00 sharp in the school cafeteria -- only they would be eating Annie's organic, whole-wheat macaroni and cheese with peas; Gala apples; Minneola tangerines; local carrots; and organic lemonade, and I would be eating:

Simple, Good, and Tasty's March event (above photo by Kate NG Sommers), held on Tuesday March 22 at Sen Yai Sen Lek in Minneapolis, offered local food with a twist. The ninety plus people in attendance were treated to a local food-based Thai tasting menu, including green papaya salad, Fischer Farms pork Isaan salad, dried Thousand Hills beef, curried egg noodles with beef, and stir fried noodles with Kadejan chicken. The meal was not what comes to mind for most people when they think about local food in Minnesota (no walleye, buttered bread, or wild rice!), and we were thrilled about it.

This month's book club selection, The Compassionate Carnivore, by Catherine Friend, chronicles the author's journey to better understand and appreciate the face on her plate. Here's a short excerpt from Indie Bound, describing the book:

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: I'm a lucky guy. Not only do I get to spend my time with some of the most important and talented food producers, chefs, restaurateurs, and organizations in the world - I also get to work with these people I greatly admire - people like Chef Alex Roberts - to create local food events that are truly unique.

Yesterday's post took a look at Thousand Hills Cattle Company and the advantages of grass fed beef.

There are purists who will argue that you can’t have pastured, grass-fed cattle in Minnesota all year round. These people have a point. Snow covers much of the ground in Minnesota for what seems like 6 - 8 months of the year. Thousand Hills Cattle Company, the largest producer of grass fed beef in the Midwest, deals with this harsh reality via a system of enormous hay bails, rolled up in the warmer months and rolled out across the snow during the winter.

First of all, there’s the cost of their product. Although their cattle are relatively inexpensive to raise, according to founder Todd Churchill (they just eat grass, right?), the cost of transporting, processing, packaging, and shipping 24 grass-fed cattle each week is enormous - there’s just not much economy of scale. By the time it gets to the grocery store or co-op, Thousand Hills beef costs more than its corn fed (non-organic) counterparts, nearly every time.